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Tinian lawmakers OK $48K for patients, judgment payment
Delegation also passes medical assistance review board
By a vote of 4-0, the Tinian and Aguiguan Legislative Delegation passed yesterday a local bill appropriating $48,000 in poker fees for some Tinian patients’ monthly subsistence allowance and to pay for a court judgment related to an infant death a few years back.
Of the total amount, $38,000 will go to the monthly and retroactive subsistence allowance of Tinian patients on dialysis or with cancer, multiple sclerosis, debilitating epilepsy seizure disorder, dermatomytositis, or post-cerebral vascular accident.
The remaining $10,000 will go to the Tinian family of an infant who died at the Commonwealth Health Center years back and was awarded court judgment, in connection with Civil Action 12-0108.
“We took it upon ourselves to help pay the judgment because according to the Office of the Attorney General, it’s the only judgment involving Tinian residents and the Department of Finance said there’s no money somewhere else to pay for it,” Rep. Trenton Conner (Ind-Tinian) told Saipan Tribune.
Besides Conner, the other Tinian delegation members are Sen. Frank Cruz (R-Tinian), Sen. Frank Borja (Ind-Tinian), and Sen. Joaquin Borja (Ind-Tinian).
Conner’s House Local Bill 18-41 now goes to the governor for action.
“I am hoping that the bill will be signed into law so that medically assisted patients can be helped,” Conner added.
The Tinian delegation also passed without amendment HLB 18-42, establishing a Tinian medical assistance review board that will screen and verify medically assisted patients. The bill also now goes to the governor for action.
The three-member Tinian Medical Assistance Review Board, under the mayor’s office, is to be composed of three persons appointed by the Tinian mayor. Their responsibility is to screen medical patients for purposes of determining medical suitability for receiving dialysis or terminally ill financial assistance.
Under the local bill, two of the board members shall be nurses who are residents of Tinian, while the third one shall be a physician, mid-level provider practicing in the CNMI.
